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Wipeout (video game)
Wipeout (stylised in promotional materials as wipE'out") is the first in a series of futuristic racing video games developed and published by Psygnosis. It was originally released in 1995 for PlayStation and PCs running MS-DOS, and in 1996 for Sega Saturn. In 2007, it was re-released for download on the PlayStation Store, first for PlayStation Portable on March, then for PlayStation 3 months later. Gameplay Set in the year 2052, players compete in the F3600 anti-gravity racing league, piloting one of a selection of craft in races on several different tracks. There are four different racing teams to choose from, each ship with its own distinct characteristics of acceleration, top speed, mass, and turning radius. By piloting their craft over power-up pads found on the tracks, the player can pick up shields, turbo boosts, mines, shockwaves, rockets or missiles, to protect the player's craft or disrupt the competitors' craft. There are a total of seven racetracks in the game, six of which are located in futuristic versions of Canada, Japan, Germany, Russia, USA and Greenland. The seventh, hidden track, is set on Mars. Introduction Development and Release Wipeout was developed and published by Psygnosis, designed in part by The Designers Republic. Aimed at a somewhat older audience than what were traditional gamers at the time, the game was designed with several marketing possibilities in mind to appeal to this fashionable, club-going, music-buying audience. The Designers Republic created art for the game's packaging, in-game branding, and other promotional materials. Music tracks were licensed from non-mainstream electronica acts to create an original soundtrack album to promote the game. Wipeout was released alongside the Sony PlayStation in Europe in September 1995. It was the first non-Japanese game for the console. Two months later in November 1995, it was released in the U.S. The game went to number one in the all format charts, with over 1.5 million units of the franchise having been sold to date throughout Europe and North America. Launch activities for the game included installation of PlayStation consoles running Wipeout in popular night clubs, the release of an accompanying soundtrack music CD, and the sale of a range of Wipeout club wear. The Saturn version of the game, released in 1996, lacked some of the visual flair due to its difficulty to utilize multi-processor configuration. Particle effects were dropped in favour of simple sprites for weapon graphics, however, it ran slightly faster than its PlayStation counterpart. In 1996, an OEM edition of Wipeout was bundled with new Sony Vaio PCs utilizing ATI's 3D Rage chipset. This 3D accelerated edition using the ATI3DCIF API provided additional resolutions of up to 640x480 pixels as well as bilinear filtering. This version also made use of the 3D Rage's MPEG acceleration. Tracks *Altima VII (Canada) *Karbonis V (Japan) *Terramax (Germany) *Korodera (Russia) *Arridos IV (United States) *Silverstream (Greenland) *Firestar (Mars; secret track) Teams There are only four teams in this game, but each team has two pilots. The teams and their pilots are as follows: *AG Systems **John Dekka **Daniel Chang *Auricom **Arial Tetsuo **Anastasia Cherovoski *Qirex **Kel Solaar **Arian Tetsuo *FEISAR **Sofia de la Rente **Paul Jackson Music The game's electronica soundtrack was composed by Tim Wright (under the alias CoLD SToRAGE). Additional soundtracks by Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital were included in the PAL version of the PlayStation game, while the Saturn version included three soundtracks by Rob Lord & Mark Bandola. *CoLD SToRAGE - "Cairodrome" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Cardinal Dancer" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Cold Comfort" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Doh T" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Messij" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Operatique" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Tentative" *CoLD SToRAGE - "Transvaal" *Rob Lord & Mark Bandola - "Brickbat" (Saturn exclusive) *Rob Lord & Mark Bandola - "Planet 9" (Saturn exclusive) *Rob Lord & Mark Bandola - "Poison" (Saturn exclusive) *Leftfield - "Afro-Ride" (PlayStation PAL exclusive) *The Chemical Brothers - "Chemical Beats" (PlayStation PAL exclusive) *Orbital - "P.E.T.R.O.L (Wipeout Mix)" (PlayStation PAL exclusive - simply titled "Wipeout" in-game) A separately sold official soundtrack album was released to promote the game. It featured a largely varied music selection in contrast to the music included in the actual game. Reception The game received positive reviews upon release. *Official PlayStation Magazine UK: 8 out of 10 (80%) *IGN: 8.0 out of 10 (80%) (PlayStation version reviewed) *Edge (magazine): 8 out of 10 (PlayStation version reviewed) References # ^ http://psp.vggen.com/news/news.php?id=4182 # ^ http://threespeech.com/blog/2007/06/ps-store-release-dates-confirmation/ Category:Games Category:Wipeout (video game)